About
Short Bio
I studied with George Olson, Don MacKenzie, Sybil Gould and Arn Lewis at the College of Wooster. I also did graduate work at Pratt Institute in painting, drawing and human anatomy. I spent 25-years as a professional technical and commercial illustrator before finishing my career in I.T. at Kenyon College. My barn studio is in Danville, Ohio on the same property where Pat and I raised three sons. We have three grandchildren.
Statement
My art is an eclectic post-modern interpretation of Impressionism. I draw inspiration from many artists as I comment visually on the world around me. I am particularly drawn to Monet, who discovered the fertile confluence between Impressionism and Abstract Expressionism late in life. Other major influences have been Constable, Hiroshige, Corot, Pissarro, Van Gogh, Bonnard, Hassam, Homer, Whistler, Rothko, Pollock, Diebenkorn and many others.
Modernism gave way to Folk music and art in the 60s and 70s. Folk artists understood that all artists are products of where and when they live. Reality is not “over the rainbow” - it is in one’s back yard. As we struggle with environmental problems like pollution and climate change, the preservation of the earth becomes a prerequisite to all other human goals - no matter how lofty. This basic premise conditions humanity’s desperate longing for spiritual existence. By preserving and celebrating the natural world we make our own spiritual rebirth possible.
I see myself as a commentator on this existential struggle - when painting a trickling Ohio rivulet or a Lake Erie scene from my boat studio. I am an advocate for the voiceless flora and fauna that depend upon humanity’s higher consciousness for their continued existence. Finally - we are one with the natural world and a part of it. We pass through nature as it passes through us.
Biography
Biography – Jeff SwartsEarly Years: My first memories are of Bogota, Colombia where we lived for 6-1/2 years until our return to Akron in 1960. Early in his career my father worked as a chemist setting up tire plants overseas. Again, in 1964, he was assigned another plant development project in Bari, Italy where we lived on the Adriatic Sea. My mother – an accomplished artist – taught me to oil paint in the year after we returned permanently to Akron in 1965. Those were formative experiences that taught me to look carefully at my surroundings and to love and appreciate different cultures and the environment.
Education: My artistic impulses were discouraged by my parents in high school, so I focused on the natural sciences and biology in particular. I was also active in sports and was recruited to play football by several small colleges including the College of Wooster and Kenyon College. I chose Wooster when they were generous with an offer of financial aid. That’s when I started taking formal art classes, needing to choose a liberal arts program to supplement the science core curriculum that I was taking. As it turned out, I majored in Fine Art with minors in Biology and Chemistry – a compromise that my parents accepted.
Work: After my undergraduate years I moved to New York City and subsequently to Washington D.C. where I got my first freelance illustration assignments for Time-Life Books on their Home-Repair Series. I was well suited to instructional illustration and it paid reasonably well. It also gave me time to paint when I wasn’t on assignment. I moved back to Ohio permanently in 1981 to work at Frick Art Museum at Wooster on the John Taylor Arms Collection conservation project. Subsequently, I spent the better part of the next 25-years working as a technical illustrator and CAD designer for numerous major corporations. I finished my career working in I.T. at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.
I started oil painting again about 2-decades ago and retired from Kenyon in 2015. My wife Pat and I raised 3-sons on our property in Danville. Following my retirement I was able to move my studio into a larger studio that I built in the barn on our property.
My landscape and aquatic paintings are mostly started plein air and finished in the studio. I have shown my work with some success at numerous local and regional art festivals, galleries and museums.
